The Mental Edge: 10 ways to improve your mental health this month

May is national Mental Health Awareness Month. This is a vital opportunity to increase the attention you pay to psychological functioning in your families, schools, and businesses.

By Ben Johnson, PhD

May is national Mental Health Awareness Month. This is a vital opportunity to increase the attention you pay to psychological functioning in your families, schools, and businesses.

Mental health is central to many aspects of our lives – such as sleep, learning, and irritability. Work in neuroscience suggests the great plasticity of our brains. If you can find a way to make meaningful behavioral changes, you can enhance your long-term emotional strength.

Even if your mental health is already solid, personal growth work can help you to self-actualize, to be the best you can be. I would like to suggest ten ways you can honor “Mental May.”

1. Don’t be an emotional perfectionist. No matter how developed you are, you are going to experience stress, frustration, and failure. Normalize it. Model a coping attitude; demonstrate that you understand that the human game is to learn from our emotions, not to suppress or deny them.

2. Embrace the social garden. There is room for many people in your life. Individuals can play varied roles and meet different emotional needs. A field of roses is pretty; a blooming, diverse garden is probably a better metaphor for how to live your social life. Though I see my primary care doctor a few times a year, he is a crucial part of my network.

3. Up your self-care. Your own needs are easy to ignore in the face of modern demands. However, small acts of indulgence can fill your tank and enable you to be receptive to others. Even though it took some shuffling, I was able to attend a decent comedy show recently that fit the self-care bill. More generally, make sure to incorporate play, down-time and fun in your life. Watch out for people who model that everything is a grind.

4. Repair interpersonal situations quickly and freely. You are going to blow it with someone soon. It is hard to avoid letting people down, being insensitive, or experiencing interpersonal conflict. Being married with children creates plentiful opportunities for upset. Remember that you never signed a contract promising perfection. Focus on your role in interactions, own your part of the dance, and apologize for hurt feelings – even if you think it was mostly their fault.

5. Assume acceptance despite the risk of rejection. Act like people will appreciate your authentic self. What risks would you take if you were playing to your strengths? Share your opinion in class more freely, shocking others by breaking from your “shy role”. Sign up for a much-contemplated yoga or cooking class. Presume that you will be welcomed and you will often find you are. If you aren’t unequivocally embraced, you will learn to cope and build ties via persistence.

6. Hold loosely expectations for yourself, others, and the future. If you expect your computer to behave, you are heading toward frustration. If you think your spouse knows what you need without you expressing it directly, you will be soon be upset. Glitches – both technical and relational – are inevitable. Hope for the best, but be ready to adjust. Before you embark on a trip or a project, get conscious that people might have different views about how fast to drive or who should be in charge. I often say, “Everything takes follow-up!”

7. Beware motivational attributions. Avoid explaining the behavior of others by concluding that they are intrinsically apathetic. In a teaching role, it can be tempting to assume that students don’t want to learn or listen. However, when there are problems, there are usually subtle contextual factors at play. Search for skill deficits, confusion and perfectionism. If I am not getting to something, it typically isn’t that I don’t care; many things compete for center-stage.

8. Cultivate self-confidence. Feeling effective in different areas of life can elevate your self-esteem. If you like your style as a father, husband, and worker, great. If your confidence is shaky, don’t give up. Identify skills to improve, like becoming a better public speaker or more financially literate. Get the right support. Tolerate the uncertainty and missteps involved in joining a communications class or consulting a financial planner. Distract from comparisons with how advanced other people are, as these comparisons are just not relevant or helpful. Your efforts matter.

9. Develop constructive metaphors for navigating the world. Some people approach life like it is a zero-sum game – when someone else wins, they lose. They communicate that you either “have the upper hand” or are “under someone’s thumb.” Get conscious and replace these limiting metaphors. You might relate to sports, dancing, or artistic images, and thus “pull together as a team,” “find your own beat,” or “discover inspiration to create beautiful works.” Find ways of talking that support your uniqueness and your power. Metaphors matter.

10. Promote positivity. Plan bonding and mood-enhancing events. You could have students bring in inspirational sayings for a quote-board. Family members could relate happiest memories over dinner. Coworkers could post stress-busting ideas on a whiteboard or compete for funniest cartoon. Propose a group walk for the office — perhaps to the closest frozen yogurt shop. Identify a point-person to take the lead.

In conclusion, use May to do mental health spring cleaning. Ditch a bad habit and experiment with a new routine. Your mental health matters; your actions impact the mental health of others. We are all sensitive creatures with a rich and complex inner life.

Ben Johnson, PhD, ABPP is a clinical psychologist who practices, supervises, and teaches psychotherapy at RICBT, Brown University, and URI. He loves helping people apply a broad range of psychological concepts and strategies to reduce isolation and improve their moods, relationships, productivity, and lives.

Please send comments to features@providencejournal.com; be sure to put “Mental Edge” in the subject field. You may also write to “Mental Edge”, Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St. Providence RI, 02902

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